cool pajama pants, man

  

Simplicity Unisex Sleepwear pattern #9964 & cool cotton print fabric from The Fabric Place

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Remember these groovy pajama bottoms I started over a year ago? I pulled them out of the sewing stash and was shocked to see how little there was left to do to finish them up. I'm feeling so much more comfortable with the sewing this year - with the pressing and pinning and stitching and such - that it didn't take me much time to get these back on track. I started out by doing a little fitting and resizing here and there. My big sewing accomplishment was adding the cuffs on the legs.

I had meant to spend my sewing time this week finishing off my summery top, but after sewing it all together and trying it on, it was clear that the facings were way too stiff and large. It felt like I had a light, little top on over some sort of football shoulder brace thing. So I decided to cut down the facings. Remember my pretty little facings? Here they are now.

I need to finish the edges on them again. But since I'm cutting and reworking the thing anyway, I'm thinking that the neck is a little too high for me. I may just open up the shoulders, cut a new neckline, piece together some scraps to make a new front neck facing and resew.

So much for the one-hour sewing project!

Did some work on the groovy pj bottoms. I've finished the inside seams and fly. Next, I'll baste up the side seams and then I get a chance to slip 'em on and see how they fit. So far, they look humongous! I'm using one of those unisex multi-size (kids and adults) patterns and I'm not sure that medium adult = woman, but that's what I guessed from the measurements listed. Loose, comfy pj's are what I'm shooting for though, so I think I'm on the right track.

Once the fitting is done, it's on to my first attempts at using elastic and hemming. Luckily, we briefly went over the basics of these in my last sewing class. No one was using elastic and no one was far along enough to start hemming, so we didn't really get much of a chance to practice the techniques, but I'm hopeful that having seen it a couple of times and following the pictures in my reference book will be enough. And if they don't come out perfect, well no one's gonna see them anyway!

I finally started working on my pajama bottoms. Step one was make buttonholes, something which I hadn't done before and needed to practice a bit with my machine first. My machine has a nice little four-step buttonhole stitch that worked real well, so I jumped right in and did it!

The buttonholes are actually not for buttons but rather for the tie at the waist. If I understand the instructions correctly, elastic will be attached between two fabric ends, which will slide through the buttonholes to the front. I really hate pajama pants with only elastic. I prefer men's pj's with snaps that let the pants hang around my hips. I hope that I can manage to adjust things on these pj's so they'll sit on my hips the way I like.

Since I kinda have to wait until sewing class on Thursday to do the next step on dressy (curved seams for the facings - yikes!), I've decided to get set up to begin my next sewing project. I cut out the pattern pieces for my groovy pj's and laid them out on my nifty fabric.

I can't wait unitl they're done and I can lounge around the house in them!